Mitel Announces Redundancies

Mitel has laid off an undetermined number of employees as it phases out its legacy digital telephone products in favour of IP-based telephone systems.

A spokesperson for the company stated, “The measures we announced yesterday complete our transition to an IP communications company from a legacy digital telephony technology provider.

Our early and sustained investment in IP-based research and development and our decision to concentrate our efforts on this new technology have positioned us to take advantage of the industry shift to IP-based communications solutions. Our IP-based product revenues increased by 48% in fiscal 2006 compared with fiscal 2005 and 97% of our system shipments for the quarter ended April 30, 2006 were IP-based communications solutions.

We have now put in place the administrative, operational, sales and marketing programs that will allow the Company to take advantage of the telephone communications industry shift to new IP-based platforms, desktop devices and software applications and deliver positive operating results and long-term growth.

Though difficult, this adjustment does require a reduction in the numbers of employees, representing approximately six percent of our global workforce. Those impacted were informed today and have been provided with comprehensive termination packages designed to support them through this transition.”

Mitel has around 850 employees based in Canada and several hundred based in South Wales.